Promoting
Openness, Innovation,
and Experimentation

Teach Your Course on Canvas Network.

Instructors come to Canvas Network for professional development, academic rigor, and the freedom to be creative.

Deadline for Course Proposal Submission: October 31, 2018

The call for Course Proposals with January - March 2019 start dates closes October 31, 2018. The Course Proposal form will reopen in early February for courses starting after March 2019.

Offer a Course

Let’s Get Started

The rumor is true—Canvas Network is free. Instructure created Canvas Network with the intention of promoting openness, innovation, and experimentation in education and to give back to the academic community.

Who can teach a course on Canvas Network?

Ivy league universities don’t have a monopoly on qualified, passionate, and talented instructors. If your institution fits any of the parameters below, then you too may teach an open online course:

Two-year and four-year colleges and universities

K-12 schools and districts

Academic partnerships and consortia

Nonprofit organizations with an education or public service mission

Government agencies with an education mission

For-profit companies will be considered if courses are offered in collaboration with an educational institution or organization as described above

Getting Started is Easy

1. Institutional Partner

Check to see if your institution is already a partner on our Institutions page. Don't see your institution listed? No worries. Just print off our one-page Canvas Network Agreement and have it signed by a department dean or director and email it to courses@canvas.net. The Agreement must be signed before your course can be listed on Canvas.net.

2. Course Screening

Submit your course idea using the “Interested in Creating a Course” form on the right and one of our team members will contact you to discuss your course and your goals.

3. Course Proposal

4. Onboarding

Within 48 business hours after receiving your official Course Proposal, we’ll contact you to set up an onboarding call. During this call, you and your Canvas Network Instructional Design Consultant will discuss your course, your goals, our quality review process, and your target deadlines schedule.

5. Begin Building

Following your onboarding call, your Canvas Network Instructional Design Consultant will provide a course shell for you to begin building.

Course Development Timeline

We recommend selecting a course start date three to six months from the time you submit your course proposal.

Submit proposal →

Onboarding call →

Instructional Design Consultation →

Course listed on Canvas.net →

Course readiness review →

Course is published

3 - 6 Months

Support and Services

Canvas Network Instructional Design Consulting Services

Our services are designed to provide the right amount of support you need to expand your reach, experiment with new technologies and integrations, and innovate with new pedagogies regardless of whether you are the lone wolf educator or a member of a MOOC machine team.

“The Canvas Network Team have been instrumental to the success of our MOOC offerings. Their high level of professionalism, solid instructional design knowledge, and positive attitude led to a smooth course design and delivery process. If Hilary and her team are a true representation of Canvas Network, this organization is set for continuous success.” - Felix Brito, Director of Course Design and Production at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

“I’m truly grateful to Canvas Network for enabling me to deliver this educational opportunity to the world. I’m particularly grateful to Canvas Network team members who helped mentor me through the process of creating and publishing my MOOC.” - Kevin Kimball, Professor of Accounting at Brigham Young University, Idaho

Course Start Dates

New course listings are posted on Mondays (unless it is a holiday then it is pushed to Tuesday). Generally, Canvas Network course start dates are restricted to two dates per month.

Canvas Network Surveys

Every English language Canvas Network course includes two surveys: a Welcome Survey (used to collect demographic information) and a User Experience Survey (used to collect information on their course and platform experience). Institutional partners may add a few questions and may access the data at any time.

Course Imports

Save time with existing course content. Because Canvas has powerful course import tools, you won't waste time building courses from scratch, so you can start experimenting, innovating, and sharing your knowledge with the world even faster.

Platform Neutrality

We’re here to help you achieve your goals. Whether your goals are to engage in a worthwhile professional development opportunity or if you want to raise program awareness, just let us know and we’ll support you any way we can.

Technical Support

Canvas Network provides our DIY clients access to the Canvas Network Training Course, Canvas Guides, and the Canvas Community. Don’t worry, we know that sometimes there are questions that pop up and you need help. Your Instructional Design Consultant is there to help direct you to the answers you are looking for. Once the course begins, you and your students can also contact Canvas Support by emailing help@canvas.net.

Course Information

Open Course Policy

All free courses on Canvas Network will be made publicly visible. Anyone with the course URL will be able to view course content once the course is published. The ability to view and participate in discussions, earn badges, and earn certificates is limited to learners who enroll in the course and accept Canvas Network terms of use and privacy policies. Standard copyright laws apply.

In general, all course content must be made available to students after the course end date. Exceptions may be made for fee-based programs and courses.

All courses with a Creative Commons license will be shared on Canvas Commons under the same license selected for the course. The primary instructor of the course will be listed as the author.

Your Course, Your Way

Canvas Network courses come in a variety of formats and pedagogies. All courses need to include a Help Forum for the instructor to monitor (Canvas Notifications makes this easy). Instructors should feel free to participate in their course as much or as little as they need to as long as they set learner expectations and meet these expectations.

If you want to test a new pedagogy theory or a new course design with real learners, then this is the place for you. Dream it. Build it.

Canvas Network institutional partners are invited to teach up to 15 courses per year. Repeat courses can run up to three times per year.

Own Your Content

Don’t worry—you own your course content. Creative Commons licensed courses are shared to Canvas Commons with the instructor listed as the author.

Badges and Certificates

Learners on Canvas Network are less concerned with grades and more concerned with how they are personally benefiting from the course and if they can earn a badge(s) or a certificate. While Canvas Network does not act as the issuer for badges or certificates, your Instructional Design Consultant will help you select the right tool for your needs.

Class Size

The number of enrolments vary from course to course significantly. To date the largest Canvas course had 65,000 enrollments. We invite you to beat that number.

While Canvas Network does not act as the issuer for certificates your Instructional Design Consultant will help you select the right tool for your needs.

Open Ecosystem

Canvas Integrates with 100+ like-minded partners to ensure that the technology, tools, and services are available to help you build your ideal learning ecosystem. Choose from proven partners like Zaption, Badgr, TedEd, Piazza, and more.

“Digital Badges are an integral part of the pedagogical design of University of Derby MOOCs. We started using Badgr for issuing digital badges after encountering some technical issues around cross platform user experience with our previous provider. Our learners love the Badgr interface and they work across all devices and browsers.”
- Syed Munib Hadi Head of Academic Innovation Hub at the University of Derby

Data Extraction and Open API

Canvas is built with an Open API, meaning users have programmatic access to our software. This allows experienced programmers to extract your usage data and discover new and exciting ways to use Canvas. The possibilities are almost endless with the Canvas Open API.

We’re Mobile

Canvas Network courses can be accessed through the Canvas app. Go to the app store and look up the Canvas app, then login at learn.canvas.net.

Canvas Network Research

Access Canvas Network De-identified Data

Canvas Network recently released de-identified and aggregated data sets for research purposes. The first data set is available to download immediately. The second data set requires researchers to agree to a terms of use before gaining access to this data. For more information go to Canvas Network De-identified Data.

Open API

Canvas securely stores more data than you can possibly imagine (unless you can imagine 280 million rows of daily usage data). You can tap into it to build reports, visualize data, or build your own apps with our open API.

Survey and Qualitative Research

Instructors and researchers are welcome to include surveys in their courses and to conduct qualitative research. We ask that publicly shared data is de-identified and in aggregate form.

For specific questions about research opportunities on Canvas Network please email cndata@canvas.net.

Technical questions about Canvas? Please contact support at help@canvas.net or call 800.203.6755.